Cover: Think this is my favourite of Greg’s colour. Like the colour choices by GuruFX too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I like a good villain cover.
Page 1: Working out ways to reintroduce all the information to follow the story is about 95% of the job, sometimes.
The completely easy-going AI for the suit was an idea that just came when writing it back in issue 8, and it makes its return here.
Obvious big thing is Carlo Pagulayan and Scott Hanna taking over interiors. Hullo Carlo! Hullo Scott!
Page 2: Carlo did the designs for “our” Iron Man suits (i.e. the ones bar the Guardian armour) back in the first arc, and you can see part of him that likes machinery come right to the fore here. Nice stuff.
Page 3: Bottom of the page is the “clock” on the issue, with the Godkiller’s approach being constantly reminded. Clearly, the genre-wise reader may not believe we’ll destroy Earth like this, but you have to do everything to make it feel real for the characters, and so your buy-into their emotions. There’s lots more of this in the next issue too.
Page 4: You’ll remember that 451 took big damage last issue. As Tony has been working on his plan, he’s been getting this get up together.
As always, contrast between moments of real cruelty and pleasant begging. Conflicted, our 451.
Page 5: There’s been a lot of emotional confrontation in this story, and running and hiding and desperation. But now, we are building towards a big brawl. I could say this was a metaphor for something, and it probably is, but it’s also about the punching…
Page 6: As I said, Carlo designed the suits, so it felt good he was drawing this here where they all come out and play. The Grey-suit is the original prototype idea I wanted to use in issue 1 before rejecting it (You’ll have to dig out the writer notes on that for the full story). The Stealth suit was in issue 3. Also two modified versions of the modular suit, one loaded for missiles and one with nifty cannons.
Page 7: The sort of techno-sense you try to make in a Romantic superhero comic is different than you’d do in a hard-sci-fi situation. I hope that this gives enough to buy into the “this is now a completely closed system, you can’t hack it without physically becoming part of the system”. This page is fundamentally setting up the battle in terms of “This is what one combatant is trying to do and this is what the other is”. With Iron Man, I seem to like my combat to be more than a straight fight. I think they often end up being structured like an engineering problem that Tony is trying to solve. Or that’s part of it, anyway. I tend to be quite methodical in my action in books.
Pages 8-9: And a double-page spread of mighty-marvel action of ultra-tech fighting the best Earth has to offer. I like a big crowd battle, even though it kills artists. Carlo does great here.
Page 10: The tall panel on the left seems to add speed to the Godkiller. May just be me.
Page 11: The ever-popular “EVERYONE PILE ON!” tactic.
Page 12:I kind of like the high-power laser, last seen in issue 2. It’s my R-Type power-up weapon of choice.
Page 13:The Heavy-armour, last seen in the Parisian catacombs in issue 4.
Page 14: Tony beats 451 physically, but that was never the point, was it?
Page 15: There’s something deeply appealing about Tony throwing Helmets at 451.
Page 16: Note the “clock” ticking quicker with the cut-backs to the Godkiller as we move from the physical threat of 451 being the biggest immediate problem to the Godkiller being the actual thing that’s going to kill everyone.
The comparison to Ultron’s telling, I think.
Page 17: I was debating with the editorial team over the ending of this. On some levels, it makes more typical heroic sense for Tony to solve the problem. That’s what heroes do? For me, this had to be Tony’s moral triumph here. Tony doesn’t win just because he’s strong. Tony wins because he’s right, and finally 451 finally sees it.
Page 18: I love slingshots around planets.
Yeah, 451 is a little depressed by this point.
Page 19: Yeah, 451 is deep in tragic robot mode by this point. Carlo does a good job at actually capturing the desperation of Tony here. He’s saved the world here, sure, but it’s not as if he’s not worried about this. Just because you’ll die to save people doesn’t mean you don’t want to live, to state the bloody obvious.
Page 20: For me, the slightly pull out, showing Tony alone with this corpse of the robot captures the isolation of his predicament.
Gillen, Kieron (21 September 2013)
Writer Notes: Iron Man 15 Kieron Gillen's Workblog. Retrieved on 9 January 2017.
